The Leelanau Birdfest is three days of birding on the Leelanau peninsula – an absolute bird lover’s paradise - and it runs from Thursday, May 18 to Sunday, May 21. It’s time to get out the binocs, put on a hat for shade, and sign up!
The festival is hosted by Saving Birds Thru Habitat and takes birders on four field trips featuring nesting Piping Plovers, Magnolia Warblers, flycatchers, vireos, and other migratory birds. The festival also includes two buffet dinners and a keynote presentation from Dr. Daniel Klem, Jr., author of Solid Air, Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Window
The program fee is $45 and includes a full buffet dinner on Friday and Saturday, and coffee and breakfast rolls on Sunday morning. Online registration goes through May 16, with in-person registration available at the Habitat Discovery Center in Omena right up to the event. For hours and questions about the 2023 Leelanau BirdFest, call 231-271-3738.
Here’s a look at the field trips:
Friday, May 19, 2023
7:30 AM: Popp Road Ponds and Bodus Road Fields – Leader Brian Allen. Birding for ducks, shorebirds, and possibly rails, grassland birds, including Meadowlarks (hopefully a Western Meadowlark, seen here last year), Bobolinks, and possibly Upland Sandpipers. If there is time, the group may check nearby woodlots for migrating Warblers.
(Brian Allen, photo courtesy of Saving Birds Thru Habitat)
8:00 AM: DeYoung Natural Area – Leader Greg Nobles. This is a Leelanau Conservancy property located on Cedar Lake near Traverse City – there is over a mile of shoreline to explore!
8:00 AM: Charter Sanctuary – Leader Jim Kartsimas. Will visit a property privately managed for bird habitat to see Soras, Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers and Eastern Kingbird.
1:00 PM: Piping Plover and Magnolia Warbler – Leader Dave Dister. Other birds expected include Semipalmated Plovers, Gulls, Terns and migrant Warblers. The second half of the trip will be a hike to see Prairie Warblers, Brown Thrasher, Gray Catbird, Field Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, etc. (Piping Plovers are considered a federally “threatened” species and the Sleeping Bear Dunes has many systems in place to protect them here!)
(An adult Piping Plover, photo courtesy of NPS.)
1:00 PM: Native Plant Guided Walk – Leader Mike Berst. Visit a yard completely covered with native plants. Husband and wife team, Mike Berst and Kathie Albright, have been propagating and cultivating native plants on their property in Omena for 10 years. Each year over 200 native plant species bloom in their yard. On the guided walk through the property, you can learn how they identified the native species that showed up once they had eliminated the lawn and exotic plants, and about the native plants they added. Their yard now supports a wide variety of pollinators, butterflies, moths, amphibians, and nesting birds.
5:30 PM: Buffet Dinner and Bird Trivia with Kirk Waterstripe
Saturday, May 20, 2023
8:00 AM: Leelanau State Park – Leader Brian Allen. Will bird the roadways in the campsite as well as the area around the lighthouse as this can be an exceptional migrant trap for Warblers, Tanagers, Thrushes, Orioles, and Grosbeaks. Time permitting, may continue to Lighthouse West Natural Area for trail birding and more migrants.
(Prairie Warbler, photo courtesy of Saving Birds Thru Habitat)
8:00 AM: DeYoung Natural Area – Leader Greg Nobles.
8:00 AM: Charter Sanctuary – Leader Jim Kartsimas. Will visit a property privately managed for bird habitat to see Soras, Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers and Eastern Kingbird.
1:00 PM: Piping Plover and Magnolia Warbler – Leader Dave Dister.
1:00 PM: Native Plant Guided Walk – Leader Mike Berst.
5:30 PM: Buffet Dinner
7:00 PM: Presentation by Dr. Daniel Klem, Jr., author of Solid Air. Dr. Klem is the world’s leading expert on birds crashing into windows. He has studied the issue for 50 years.
Sunday, May 21, 2023
9:00 AM: Native Plant Presentation, by Brian Zimmerman, at Habitat Discovery Center. Coffee and breakfast rolls will be available.
(A tour at the Habitat Discovery Center, photo courtesy of Saving Birds Thru Habitat)
For more info on the 2023 Leelanau BirdFest, visit their website or call 231-271-3738. Saving Birds Thru Habitat also has several brochures online on how to, you guessed it, save birds through habitat.
